Revenue from 3D printed parts. The use of 3D printing for part production applications continues to grow, as shown in the above chart. In 10 years, it has gone from virtually nothing to 28.3% of the total product and service revenues from 3D printing. Source: Wohlers Associates

Buyers hit the brakes on purchasing hobbyist 3-D printers in the past year, even as industrial-grade printers are playing a larger role in manufacturing finished parts rather than prototypes. Those were two key conclusions to be drawn from an annual snapshot of the “additive” printing industry just released by consulting and research firm Wohlers Associates.

Now in its 18th year of publication (that’s right all you 3-D printing arrivistes, this stuff has been around for a while), the annual report describes a healthy and growing market for 3-D printing equipment, services, materials and processes, albeit one where the value continues to accrue to industrial applications.

According to the Wohlers report, the overall market for 3-D printing products and services hit $2.2 billion in 2012, a compounded annual growth rate of almost 29 percent compared to the $1.7 billion the industry recorded in 2011. Over the 25 years that Wohlers has been tracking 3-D printing the compounded annual growth rate has been about 25 percent.

Of the 3-D printing machines sold, the low-cost category (those priced under $5,000 and where most of the DIY crowd is concentrated) accounted for almost $40 million in sales. That translates to 6.5 percent of the $617.5 million in 3-D printers sold. Yes, the hobbyist market is a very new one, but the growth curve it has been riding for the past few years has slowed dramatically. From 2008 to 2011 the market in low-cost 3-D printers grew 346 percent a year, according to Wohlers. In 2012, growth slowed to 46 percent.

You can’t expect to more than triple growth year after year, things have to slow at some point. But there is something more going on, says Terry Wohlers principal consultant and president of Wohlers Associates. “It’s possible we picked the low-hanging fruit, the hobbyists, makers and DIY folks who wanted these,” Wohlers says. “These aren’t professional grade systems, and they aren’t that easy to use. I just don’t see the average family having a 3-D printer to make parts for whatever.”

In response to the slowing uptake among amateurs, Wohlers says he’s seeing companies like MakerBot going upstream. “You can tell that they are trying to go beyond the market of the individual hobbyist types and get into the more professional companies,” Wohlers says. “MakerBot in particular has had some success at Ford, but all these low-cost 3-D printer makers are finding it is a little harder to get deeper into the hobbyist market and breakthrough into some of the professional markets.”

It is in the professional markets – especially at the very high-value, high-end in aerospace and medical devices – where the money is being made in 3-D printing. And for the first time in the 25 years since Wohlers has been tracking the space, that includes a big chunk of revenue from producing actual parts rather than just prototypes. Companies like G.E. Aviation are printing out fuel injectors for commercial jet engines. Medical implant company Lima Corporate printed out 40,000 porous titanium cups for hip replacements (the porosity allows the bone to grow around the metal cup). Of the $2.2 billion overall market, about 28 percent in sales were from finished parts.Percentage of overall revenue from 3-D printed parts. The use of 3-D printing for part production applications continues to grow, as shown in the above chart. In 10 years, it has gone from virtually nothing to 28.3 percent of the total product and service revenues from 3-D printing. Source: Wohlers Associates

“That is really the next frontier,” Wohlers says. “Today it’s in aerospace and medical, but it will be companies like Shapeways and Materialise, and eventually maybe Amazon, and who knows who else, printing parts and other things. It will be professional systems cranking out things by professionals, and that will become a very real, and very big market.”